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Any parent knows the terrors of what General Motors calls the \u201cpuke zone\u201d on a long road trip. The children are happily reading, or playing on their laptop, or watching a DVD and the next thing you know, you\u2019ve got a motion sick kid and a huge interior cleaning bill.<\/p>\n
Fortunately, automakers feel your pain.<\/p>\n
GM has enlisted the children of its own employees to improve the location of its ceiling-mounted, backseat DVD players. And Ford Motor Co. testers are guarding against the inevitable by making vehicles more \u2014 um \u2014 spew resistant.<\/p>\n
DVD players are customarily located in the ceiling or on the back of seats (see the Dodge Durango or Hyundai Equus) because scientific research has determined that if a passenger\u2019s eyes are focused on a fixed point \u2014 and can see the passing landscape outside the vehicle \u2014 then their brains know they\u2019re moving.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut if our eyes are at a downward angle and do not see the view outside the vehicle, our bodies become sensitive to motion and increase the chance of sickness,\u201d says Don Shreves, manager of GM\u2019s Human Factors engineering group which studies how customers interact with vehicles.<\/p>\n
With GM\u2019s three-row, midsize 2014 Buick Enclave SUV, the Human Factors team took its research one step further. They put kids to work during the company\u2019s Take Your Child to Work Day. The goal: determine the best placement of the DVD screen to increase view-ability and decrease motion sickness.<\/p>\n
GM researchers set up a sliding track on the Enclave\u2019s roof that could move the DVD player fore and aft. They then monitored the responses of more than 75 kids to determine when the screen was too close or too far away. After crunching the data, Human Factors turned the results over to Buick\u2019s vehicle engineering team, which integrated the findings into the SUV\u2019s final design.<\/p>\n
Chrysler also has done extensive research with the result that the rear-seat entertainment system in the 2015 Dodge Durango has been relocated to the backs of the front seats from the ceiling center console. \u201cChrysler Group takes seriously the issue of passenger comfort to \u2018make things easy for the queasy,\u2019 \u201d says Chrysler spokesman Eric Mayne.<\/p>\n
But what of the inevitable backseat disaster?<\/p>\n
Ford has it covered. The company\u2019s researchers pour milkshakes down seats to make sure seat belts buckle, and that upholstery and nooks and crannies can be properly cleaned of grit, drinks, and, yes, vomit.<\/p>\n
\u201cAccidents happen,\u201d a Ford spokesman said. \u201cWe test crevices with crumbs and crap to make sure seats are easily cleaned.\u201d<\/p>\n